A robot programmed by CapSen Robotics, based in Oakland, sorts through a bin of plastic items using 3-D computer vision and a vaccum in the arm. In a warehouse, the arm can be used to pick up objects to fill orders or assist with assemby lines.

Metal created by a 3-D printer is displayed by Next Manufacturing, a research center through CMU's College of Engineering. The facility studies the technology behind the 3-D printing of metals and how the process could be improved.

Dual robotic manipulator arms are demonstrated by RE2 Robotics, based in Lawrenceville. The human controller's movements are replicated by the larger robot and can be mounted onto a larger platform for use in a warehouse or research lab.

Pittsburgh-area robotics and 3-D printing companies displayed their designs as part of a preview of the Hazelwood Green’s Mill 19 facility.

The former steel mill will soon be the home to the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute, a public-private partnership between Carnegie Mellon University, community stakeholders and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Hazelwood Green's Mill 19 site will be occupied by members of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute.

CMU President Farnam Jahanian said he was glad the former steel mill site was able to find a new life as a technology hub.

“When manufacturing was transforming the world economy, steel was the heart of manufacturing, and Pittsburgh was the center of it all,” Jahanian said. “The city has reinvented itself as the center of a new economy and our academic institutions are playing a central role in this reinvention."

ARM members are the first tenants of Mill 19, which is expected to break ground in spring 2019.

Pittsburgh’s last large riverfront property, Almono, got a new name today: it will now be called Hazelwood Green.

The Regional Industrial Development Corporation, or RIDC, owns the site’s old mill building, Mill 19. RIDC’s Senior Vice President for Development Tim White said RIDC is negotiating a lease with the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute, or ARM, to be Mill 19’s first tenant.

When the steel mills closed, Mary Kay Babyak, the executive director of an education nonprofit, said she thinks parents didn’t see a future for the their children in blue-collar trade jobs.

“A number of these folks have a history of seeing their parents, their grandparents, their siblings losing positions and opportunities and great jobs,” she said. “So the idea was college will guarantee success. Which it doesn’t.”